I can’t do laundry, Christ I can’t do dishes, what would I do without you?

Joyce Manor has always had a way of being so blatantly up front and honest, that a listen to their record almost reads like a teenage fiction ‘Catcher in the Rye’-esque novel. Over their last three albums, there has been a direct correlation with age and maturation. Frustrations and unrest that you felt at 16 aren’t there anymore, but the scars still remain. Cody is an album full of scars, full of nostalgia, full of sadness for things you can’t change anymore.

“How come nothing amazes me? I don’t know.”

There aren’t any Leather Jackets or Five Beer Plan’s on this album. Cody instead draws mainly from their previous record “Never Hungover Again,” with a touch of their old sound sprinkled on top. Cody finds itself in the no man’s land between mainlined pop-punk and a Smith’s record. This departure (or depending how you look at it, their maturation) might leave their PBR drinking borderline crust punks of 2009 in the lurch, but Joyce Manor doesn’t care. Cody is their most focused record to date, and it shows the diversity in a band’s songwriting capabilities.

There is often a paradigm of a band’s first record being their loudest, unhinged, and often their most aggressive. Often each subsequent album after that becomes more focused, more “mature,” and often more subdued and self-reflective. A band “maturing” is always a phrase or saying that I often cringe at. So often a band’s first album is lauded by fans, while the subsequent albums after fade away. (Why do you think so many bands have 10 year anniversary tours for their first albums?) While Joyce Manor absolutely falls into suit of this phenomenon, it should not detract from this albums growth on a listener. Growing up sucks, Cody makes growing up palatable.

Joyce Manor could be the next Weezer, the next (old school) Green Day, the next Smiths. If mainstream music gave a shit about underground music at all this could happen - but most likely won’t. So instead I’ll keep listening to The Blue Album and I’ll wait for their 30th anniversary show. And I’ll keep listening to Joyce Manor and Cody and wait until the rest of the world wakes up.